Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Last week I mentioned having a lesson in sign language. This week we had a lesson in Persian. The difference being that I can kind of get the gist of what someone's saying in sign language, but I'm hopelessly lost when it comes to Persian. That's what happens when you bring a member to a lesson who actually speaks the language that your investigator speaks (it's pretty much never English).

One of the big highlights from this past week was definitely Mission Leadership Council! It was probably the most spiritual and most powerful one I've attended. Our conversation was focused on what really matters: who we are and why we're here. We are children of God called by Jesus Christ to teach repentance and baptize converts. We also planned for the upcoming zone training meeting(s) and tried to figure out what the schedule would be like the next two months with our change in mission presidents and transfers and everything. It was pretty intense! The big surprise though was when President suggested that we have a zone training meeting in early June - and we should have it before transfers! That was Thursday. We're having our meeting tomorrow. So much for preparation! I'm really excited though. Instead of deciding on and assigning trainings like usual, President Patrick said we could take everything we had talked about in MLC and divide it up however we wanted to. I'll probably write about it next week. It's going to be reeeaaaaally good. :)

Hey, another cool thing happening this week is that one of the twelve apostles is coming. No big deal. We're not freaking out or anything. It's only ELDER RENLUND after all!! We're telling EVERYONE about it!

"Hey, do you believe in Christ?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Remember how he established His church 2000 years ago and called Apostles to preach the gospel and everything?"

"Yeah!"

"Well guess what! Christ's church is on the Earth again today! He has called twelve apostles to direct His church and one of them is coming to Montreal this Saturday. Would you like to come hear him?"

"Well....I'm busy on Saturday..."

...

Well. I'll be there! I'll tell you all about it next Monday! Until then, I wish you all the best!

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Hey! So this week was pretty crazy. To save time and space, I'm going to share a few highlights in point form:

- We gave a Greek Book of Mormon to a man named Cristus. His name is literally Christ, in Greek.

- We started volunteering at a food bank/soup kitchen! It's so fun!

- I did an exchange with Sister Shelley. She's the bomb. We didn't teach any official lessons but we talked to a lot of people and invited them to come unto Christ. Some of them even said yes!

Sister Shelley and me at the orange ball

- We taught a lesson on the street downtown to this sweet old lady, but we were interrupted halfway through by a public protest, and since we're supposed to avoid those, we had to hide in an apartment building until they passed.

- Our stake participated in an interfaith service project yesterday, so most of the missionaries in our zone got to help clean up parks for a few hours. It was really cool. Sister Clement and I managed to be the only missionaries in our group, and we found a muslim who wants to go to YSA this Sunday and a former investigator (from 30 years ago) who was just sitting at the park. He told us he had lost contact with the Church, but now that he's found us, he wants to be baptized ASAP! He's in the elders' area though, so they're excited!

- We dropped by someone on our ward list we didn't know and she turned out to be elderly and totally deaf. Fortunately, Sister Clement knows some sign language, and I know a few basic words, so we were able to communicate. :) She's hopefully going to email me soon!

- We had interviews with President Patrick and went to the temple on the same day and we almost didn't make it from one to the other in time. Interviews went late (but were SO wonderful) and the bus dropped us off by the temple 5 minutes before our session started. When Sister Clement started running, I said, "I really don't think they'll still let us in!" She just yelled back, "Have faith!" So we both sprinted to the front doors and, miraculously, we made it in!

el templo!

more fun at the temple!

the Longueuil sisters

- We didn't have a phone for 24 hours (we left it at the mission office when we were in a hurry to get to the temple). Someone we were going to teach cancelled, but since we didn't see the text we went over anyway. She was there, and we had an awesome lesson!

- We helped a man in our ward quit smoking. He's gone a whole week without a cigarette! Next stop, temple recommend! :D He also got himself into a one-sided argument with my companion and tried to make up for it by kissing her on the head and giving us strawberries. Sister Clement was not impressed, but I was too busy laughing to help. Sorry! We're seriously so excited for him though!

Well, it still turned out to be a long email. I'll end with one of my favourite scriptures: Lookuntome in everythought; doubt not, fearnot. Doctrine and Covenants 6:36

Sister Shaver

Mycompanion with a sword plus some members...

the husband works in movies and he's about to start working on the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Also, a member of our bishopric did some kind of effects in Gravity, so he's won an Oscar and everything.

Cool, right?

A mother's day gift from my greenie (inside jokes)

Me with the new scarf from you! :)

View of Montreal

Oh, I forgot to mention we also went to a potluck with a bunch of single adults on the roof of a 14 story building on Sunday. That was cool. There were members from several different wards at varying levels of activity in the church and we shared a message about temples with them :)